Couch Time
by lookingforthestars
Summary: One by one, the members of Scorpion seek Toby's help and come to terms with their fears and hopes in the wake of Walter's accident. (Post-finale with all the characters.)


Sylvester came to him first. That wasn't unusual in times of crisis or elevated stress, which the Scorpion team faced more frequently than most. Even the best shrinks in the world spent their days listening to stories about broken marriages, evil corporate bosses, and financial distress, mostly self-inflicted. Toby much preferred to listen to his friends as they recounted driving under airplanes, being held hostage by terrorists, and stopping nuclear reactors from melting down. Life in Scorpion was many things, but boring was not one of them.

While Toby was testing Ralph on the meanings of certain facial cues—a lesson that the boy was, surprisingly, nailing—Sylvester waved him over, looking nervous; it was so typical of Sly that Toby barely worried.

"How may I help the overlord of mathematics?" Toby asked, bowing slightly and tipping his hat in Sylvester's direction. Sly ignored him and straightened his blue sweater vest.

"I was wondering if you could give me some couch time today. When you're done with Ralph, of course."

Toby speculated that Sylvester wanted to talk about his relationship with Megan—a source of endless joy and terror for him. But he quickly caught on to the human calculator's frequent glances at Walter, who was consulting with Paige on a stack of paperwork.

"Ah." Toby patted Sylvester's shoulder comfortingly. "You're experiencing some leftover anxiety from Walter's near-death experience?"

"I experience anxiety over everything," Sly clarified the obvious. "But yes. It's been three weeks since the accident and even though Walter's improving, I seem to be feeling undue stress when I consider recent events."

"Say no more." Toby turned to address Ralph, but he had already wandered off and was strapping on a pair of gloves at Happy's workstation. "As it happens, I'm free right now. Join me."

Toby's desk was too close to the other geniuses, so he led Sylvester to a private room near the back of the garage. When they weren't using it for impromptu interrogations, Walter allowed Toby to keep an actual couch in there. Walter claimed it was conducive to the health of the team, but Toby suspected that Walter was just happy to be free of his observation from time to time.

Sylvester rested on the couch, running his hands over the red fabric. Toby sat down in a chair across from him, grabbing a pen and notepad from a nearby table. "Tell me what's on your mind."

Sly sighed and pushed his hair back with his hand. "Walter nearly died on that cliff. He didn't, obviously. Each of us has been in dangerous situations before—," he looked up, slightly guilty, "maybe not me, as much, but still. Walter risks his life pretty regularly, but that day…that was the first time I didn't want to know the numbers, because they told me that there was no chance he was going to survive."

Toby chewed on the cap of his pen, thinking carefully for a moment. "Statistics are probabilities. Even the most probable occurrences are never definite. Walter proved that."

"That fact that Walter lived is something I am thankful for every day," Sylvester replied forcefully. "Without him, without Scorpion, I have nothing. If something ever happens to Walter—and his reckless behavior makes it a distinct possibility—then I'm back in that motel room, lost and scared."

"You were a kid then, Sly. Your life is different now. You have friends and," he continued with a small smile, "someone that you love."

Sylvester's eyes lit up in the way they always did when he thought about Megan. But Toby could sense uneasiness behind them. "Megan and I are making use of every moment we have together, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. But we both know…that…her future is uncertain."

Toby didn't say anything, simply nodding. Megan was a part of their family and her deteriorating condition was difficult for all of them.

"You and Happy, you could manage on your own," Sylvester continued, focusing intently on the floor. "Paige had a life before us and she'll have one after. But I'm not like the rest of you. I can't…take care of myself, completely. It's embarrassing, but it's the truth."

"So Walter's accident forced you to think about what your life would be like without Scorpion, and you're afraid that you can't be self-sufficient?" Toby leaned forward in his seat, ready to comfort Sylvester if needed. Like Paige, he was reassured by physical contact.

"Yes," Sly said, folding his hands together. "There's a seventy-five percent chance that I will be broke and depressed within a month, considering all the factors."

Toby felt nothing but compassion for Sylvester. He had the biggest heart of all of them—a gift for those he cared about, but, more often than not, a curse to himself.

"I know I can't take away decades of deep-rooted fear—not in one session, at least," Toby let out a small chuckle to ease the mood. "But I feel compelled to remind you, buddy, that you are much stronger and braver than you give yourself credit for. What you did to save that pilot, Marcus—it was something most normals, and probably most of us here, wouldn't have had the guts to do."

"Yeah." Sylvester, probably unconsciously, sat up a little straighter. "That one surprised me too."

"Look, Walter will be fine. He'll probably outlive us all just out of spite. But," Toby spoke as earnestly as he could, "regardless, you need to remember that Walter has only ever brought out what's already inside you. He didn't create you. He showed you—like he showed all of us—what you were truly capable of. You think you need Walter to survive? You don't. You just need to remember who you are."

Toby could see Sylvester processing the words in his head. When Sylvester exhaled deeply and relaxed his shoulders, Toby knew they had soaked in.

"Thanks Toby."

* * *

Cabe was next. It was a few days later, and they were returning from a relatively simple mission—less and less common those days—when Cabe asked if they could talk. Toby ushered him to the couch.

Cabe loosened his tie and removed his black jacket. Toby wondered how he could stand to wear a suit all day long. It seemed like torture. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Walter," Cabe said simply, and Toby wasn't surprised. "I'm worried about him."

"Why?"

"He…" Cabe hesitated, unsure of the exact words. "He forgave me. About Baghdad."

Toby furrowed his brow. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"I suppose it is," he replied, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his legs. He was looking at the wall behind Toby. "I thought it would take another couple of decades to fix what I'd done, and when I saw Walter on that cliff, I knew I'd never get the chance, and it made me sick. But then he forgave me. I don't know if it was out of fear, or…something else…but he forgave me. Just like that."

"You think he didn't mean it?" Toby questioned.

"Walter doesn't say things he doesn't mean," Cabe said gruffly. "But I didn't earn it. Saving him that day was only a chip off the debt I owe him. When things get back to normal and he's no longer just happy to be alive, he's going to realize that."

Toby knew Cabe and Walter's father-son relationship well, but he'd never realized until that moment how deep Cabe's affection was for the genius he had taken under his wing.

"Maybe you can't answer this…maybe no one can…but I want to know what else I can do. What it'll take to gain Walter's trust, permanently. I've got no more secrets. Not from him." Cabe exhaled what seemed to be a sigh of relief.

Toby tapped his pen against his notebook. "That's what Walter wanted, wasn't it? For there to be no more secrets between you. It's what he said after he told you about your daughter's grave."

Cabe swallowed hard and attempted to keep his emotions in check. He was succeeding, mostly, but the vibration in his voice gave him away. "It's my fault. The reason he doesn't trust people—normal people especially—that's on me. Putting all my cards on the table won't make up for the complex I gave him."

"Walter's always going to have a complex; he's a genius. It's how we are." Toby laughed gently. Each member of Scorpion had their issues, but the geniuses wore theirs loud and proud. "You hurt him, I won't deny that. But his problems connecting with people started long before you. Parents, teachers, friends—they all turned on him before you came into the picture."

"Then I was…what? The straw that broke the camel's back?"

"Maybe." Toby shrugged. "But Walter does trust people. It takes him longer. They have to prove themselves. But he can trust them…even normals. You showed him that someone could care about him because of who he is, not in spite of it. No one ever gave him that before you. Do you understand?"

They were faint, but Toby could see the tears rimming Cabe's eyes. He pushed them aside in one quick motion and cleared his throat. "Sometimes I think—all the time, actually—that it would be better for Walter if we'd never crossed paths."

"And I'm telling you it wouldn't." The shrink gave him a pointed look. "It's because of you that Scorpion exists. Maybe things didn't go as planned and he didn't help save the world when he worked with you. But you told him that he could, and now he does."

"That he does." Cabe rubbed his hands with his face and stood up. "Not a word of this to Walter, okay?"

"All confidential," Toby agreed. "Shrink's honor."

* * *

Toby was surprised when Happy approached him later that night. After dinner, she simply grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the back room.

"Feisty," he said, rubbing his arm. "I like it."

She didn't sit down, choosing instead to pace behind the couch. "What did you and Cabe talk about?"

Toby frowned. "It was confidential. Why?"

Happy sighed and pulled her hair back, securing it with an elastic—one of her many little habits. "It sucks around here. Everyone's an emotional train wreck and the tension is making me insane. I can't get anything done."

"Beautiful display of empathy, Happy." He was tempted to walk over and stop her pacing, maybe put his hands on her shoulders, but he refrained and treated their conversation as any other patient session. "What seems to be…well, eating you?"

"Look, I was as freaked out as anyone when Walter was on that cliff. I didn't like seeing him like that." She looked at the ground for a moment, then composed herself. "But he survived and he's fine. A little banged up, but fine. Except everyone's acting like Walter's version of fine, which is the opposite of fine, and no one is addressing the elephant in the room, and it—."

"Sucks?" Toby finished her sentence. She nodded her head.

"Walter's come close to dying a bunch of times, but he's not actually going to bite it. He's far too stubborn. I know that, but no one else seems to, and that's a problem."

"Wait, what's the problem?" Toby was trying to follow her angry logic, but the answer wasn't presenting itself to him easily.

"The problem," Happy spoke slowly as if her words were in a language he didn't understand, "is that we can't do our jobs if we're worried about Walt getting himself in trouble. Cabe won't let him work on any cases right now, and that's fine, I get that. But if everyone keeps tiptoeing around Walter, we're going to go into our next mission basically babysitting him, and people could die because we can't focus."

"Do you think we need to babysit Walter?" he asked, genuinely interested to hear her response.

"I think…" Happy paused for a moment and gripped the back of the couch. "I think that Walter takes some stupid risks. Usually he does it to help someone, so I get behind it, even if I don't like it. But if he risks his life again and it's not to save someone else, then I'm gonna be pissed, because Scorpion is a business, not an adventure tour."

Toby pressed his lips together to stifle a smile. He agreed with Happy fully, but he couldn't help finding her rants amusing.

"What about you, doc?" she asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

"What about me?" he asked, leaning back in his chair.

Happy mirrored his stance, leaning against a wall and folding her arms in front of her chest. "I'm the third person you've talked to about Walter. It was Sylvester first and then Cabe. I can see it on their faces."

Toby didn't bother to correct her; she was a surprisingly acute observer, even better than him sometimes.

"We've all got issues after this accident and we're all coming to you," Happy continued. "But you've got issues too, so who do you talk to?"

"Nobody," Toby shrugged. "The shrink doesn't have a shrink."

Happy's face relaxed as much as it ever did, and after thinking for a minute, she circled around the couch and sat down, facing him. "Okay, well, I'm offering. Don't take this as an invitation to tell me all your stupid crap forever, but for right now, I want to know what you're thinking."

Toby smiled again, witnessing, as he had many times, that Happy's anger was her way of expressing concern. His answer was immediate. "I'm worried that I can't be Walter."

She crinkled her forehead. "No one wants to be Walter."

"Well, not him, exactly," Toby tried to clarify. "I'm worried that if anything happens to Walter, I can't keep Scorpion together. I'll try like hell, but I'm not half the leader Walt is. Having responsibility like that, the weight of the world on your shoulders, I'm not built like that."

Happy absorbed his answer and, with some hesitancy, rested her hand on his knee. "Maybe not. But I know you'd fight for it. I'd fight too."

* * *

Several days passed and the mood in the garage was steadily improving. Toby was pouring a glass of orange juice in the kitchen when Ralph, who was alternating between eating a bowl of cereal and coming up with a more efficient design for the box it came in, spoke up suddenly.

"You notice things about people, right?" Ralph's gaze was still fixed on the cereal box, and Toby looked around before realizing they were the only ones in the room.

"Yeah, I do," Toby said, taking a swig of his juice and pushing it aside. "People are interesting."

"Mmhmm," Ralph said before falling silent. Toby wondered if he was finished talking when Ralph asked, "What do you think about Walter and my mom?"

Toby felt himself choke a little and tried to play it off. Analyzing Walter and Paige had become somewhat of a hobby, one that annoyed the two people in question to no end. Toby often wondered if Ralph picked up on the connection between them; it was difficult to tell yet how strong Ralph's emotional quotient would be.

"I think…" Toby started slowly, trying to phrase his answer in a way that wouldn't get him in trouble with Walter and Paige later when Ralph inevitably relayed the conversation to them, "that Walter really cares about you and your mom. I think being around you both makes him happy."

"Being around him makes my mom happy too. Happier than she ever was with my dad." Ralph took another bite of cereal and looked pensive. "I don't get scared much but I was scared when Walter was on the cliff. Nobody else understands me as much as he does. If he was gone, it would be a lot harder to learn how to connect with people."

"I understand, buddy." Toby moved over to the sink to clean out his glass.

"And Walter would never get to be my dad," Ralph continued casually.

Toby spun around and raised an eyebrow, unsure of what he'd just heard. Ralph seemed unfazed, carving a hole into the cereal box with his spoon. His experiments went over Toby's head most of the time.

"That's an interesting statement, kid," he replied, wondering if Ralph would elaborate.

"People are interesting," Ralph repeated, not looking up, and that was the end of the conversation.

* * *

Paige was at her desk late one night, finishing paperwork for a case involving leaked documents. When she was first hired, Toby questioned her role on the team, but he couldn't deny the pleasure of having someone else take care of the paperwork. Even if she was part of the family, now.

Toby poured a glass of water and set it down next to her. "You look tired."

Paige looked up at him, dark circles visible under her eyes. She nodded toward the water glass. "Thank you."

"Of course." They were alone in the garage, Walter having gone to a networking event with Cabe, Ralph visiting his dad in Portland and Happy and Sylvester playing (and possibly hacking) games at an arcade. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm fine," she responded automatically, and Toby could see that she was anything but fine. He thought about Happy's analysis of the group and had to agree. They were tiptoeing around something—no one more so than Paige.

"Are you sleeping okay?" Toby knew she wasn't, but he was looking for an opening while trying not to push too hard.

"I'm…" She looked at Toby and knew he was already on to her, so she gave up the act. "No. I haven't slept much these past few weeks."

"Since the accident?"

Paige stopped what she was doing and stared down at her desk, intense concentration on her face. "Yeah," she said quietly.

Toby reached out his hand and rubbed her back gently. He could tell she was close to breaking and thought it was better if it happened when it was only the two of them than when the garage was full. "Everyone's been worried about Walter. I can only imagine what you must be feeling."

"I'm feeling…what everyone else on the team is feeling," she said, inhaling deeply. "Like you said, everyone's worried about Walter."

Toby grinned a little. "We all love Walter, Paige, but your relationship with him is…different."

She turned to look at him, trying to read the meaning of his words on his face. But they both knew exactly what he meant. "Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know."

Toby thought about his own pursuit of Happy and knew how frustrating the unknown and in-between could be. "I've been told that I'm, uh, a pretty decent listener. So if there's anything you want to talk about—."

"I'm fine."

"Paige."

"Okay. I'm not fine at all." Paige ran her hands over her face and shook out her loose hair. Eventually she rested her chin on her palm and picked at her fingernails. "It never stops, this noise in my head. It's a million different thoughts, fighting for space, all the time."

"About Walter?"

She nodded. "And Ralph. When Walter survived, I thought…it's over, it's done. But now I'm just afraid. Afraid that Ralph will grow up to be reckless like that. Afraid that we'll both be hurt if something happens to Walter. Afraid that we'll never get to be…"

Paige trailed off, and Toby picked up her thought. "A family?"

She eyed him for a long moment, biting her lip. Then she turned back toward the desk. "I don't know. This whole thing…sucks."

Toby let out a small laugh. "I've been hearing that a lot lately." He leaned over and squeezed Paige's hand; she looked as though she appreciated the contact. "Walter isn't going anywhere. Especially when he has the two of you. You mean a lot to him."

"When we were at the hospital, I, um," she paused, and Toby looked at her quizzically.

"You what?"

"I kissed him." Paige groaned and leaned her head back so she was staring at the ceiling. "Walter. He was asleep, he doesn't know. I told him I was glad he didn't die and I kissed him."

Toby exhaled a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Seriously?"

"Yep." She threw her hands in the air. "In that moment it was all really clear to me, and in the few weeks since then it's gotten so fuzzy again. I don't know what I want—or maybe I do, and I just can't admit it to myself—but either way, I'm pretty sure I'll never work up the courage to say what I want to say, whatever that even is."

Paige's rant had clearly released some of her frustration, and she sat up straight in her chair. "Wow. Okay. Thank you, Toby."

"I seriously did nothing," he protested. "But, before we end this conversation and pretend it never happened, don't hold all this in, okay? I'm always around to talk. And if something is messing with your mind, tackle it. You can take better care of Ralph when you have a clear head."

Paige smiled at the mention of her son. It was rare to see such genuinely deep love—normal, genius, or otherwise. "Okay."

* * *

It had been more than a month since the accident, and Walter's physical injuries were mostly healed. He was working out an equation on his whiteboard, erasing and rewriting in the same spot multiple times. Toby motioned to him and Walter raised an eyebrow before walking over.

"I gotta talk to you about something, Walt."

"Okay," Walter replied, wiping marker ink off of his hand. Toby made his way to the back room and Walter followed him before stopping in the entryway. "Why the couch?"

"Just sit down, 197."

Walter acquiesced, keeping a suspicious eye on Toby. The shrink met his gaze, undaunted. "Tell me what's going on, Toby."

"I just wanted to check in and see how you're doing after…everything." He had to choose his words carefully because Walter, unlike other patients, wouldn't hesitate to get up and leave.

"I'm fine."

"That word is quickly becoming meaningless," Toby muttered. He took a deep breath and tried again. "I know that you believe yourself to be above the pain and suffering of mere mortals, but guess what? You're not. And if you tell me you're fine one more time, I'm just going to assume that you're in a deep depression and possibly in need of round-the-clock, supervised care."

Walter glared at him, but he knew that despite Toby's bravado, he rarely made empty threats. "Okay. I am no longer experiencing any mental or physical effects from the accident. I am fully functional."

He gave Toby a sarcastic look, but Toby was far from finished. "And how are you emotionally?"

Walter snorted. "That's a stupid question."

"Questions are the foundation of all knowledge," Toby retorted. "Alright, look, I didn't bring you back here to be snarky. But you went through hell, Walter, and it affected everybody around you. Kind of stands to reason that you might be dealing with some things too."

"Nothing that's relevant now." Walter crossed his arms. "Okay?"

"You believed you were going to die." It was a bit of a low blow, and Toby knew it, but Walter was a tough nut to crack. He saw the color drain from Walt's face and continued. "Did that scare you?"

Walter blinked and focused his attention on the wall. "Not the dying part," he responded finally.

"What part then?"

There was another long silence before Walter said, "If I'd been in that accident six years ago, it wouldn't have mattered at all. I could have…" he swallowed, "been gone and no one would notice, except Megan, I guess."

The loss of Walter O'Brien would have been a loss to the whole world. Toby struggled to imagine him being so alone before he founded Scorpion. "And now you have friends."

"Now I have something to lose." He chuckled nervously. "I have…everything to lose."

"Like what?"

Walter scratched the side of his face and shifted in his seat. "Uh, Megan, for one. If I wasn't researching MS any longer she might not have any…hope…left." He looked saddened by the prospect.

Toby knew that Megan was a sore subject and expected Walter to clam up. But he did the opposite. "And Cabe, too. I worried that Cabe would feel like he lost, um, another child. That would be…difficult. And you and Happy, too. And Sylvester."

"What about us?"

"You three are, um, you're brilliant. You save people's lives. Without Scorpion, you could be working in jobs that don't use your full range of skills. It would be a huge waste considering everything that we've, uh, accomplished so far."

"It's been a heck of a ride," Toby acknowledged.

"Yeah. It's…stressful, having all these people relying on me for things. But there have been a lot of good things, too," Walter seemed to relax against the couch, having unburdened at least part of his mind.

There was only one piece of the puzzle left. "I noticed that you're not saying anything about Paige and Ralph."

Walter glanced toward the door, as if he was contemplating making a run for it. Toby half expected that very outcome, but Walter stayed put, in dead silence.

After an eternity of looking for the right words, he clenched his jaw and said, "I can't find the balance."

It wasn't what Toby expected. "What?"

"Being around Ralph, I, um…it makes me think about someone other than myself. I want him and Paige to be able to…rely on me. I don't want to disappoint them. But I also," Walter was clearly struggling with an overload of emotions, and Toby silently allowed him to take his time, "I also have to make up for what I did—what my software did—in Baghdad. We accept all these dangerous missions to help people, and I'll do whatever it takes because every life that we save is, um, one more toward fixing my mistakes."

"Oh." Toby was finally beginning to understand the reason—one of the reasons, at least—that Walter had kept Paige at arm's length for so long. "I get it, Walter. You want two different things that are both the right thing but you think they're mutually exclusive."

Walter nodded solemnly. "More or less, yeah."

"But I don't think they are. Exclusive, I mean." Toby leaned down to catch Walter's eyes. "Paige knows exactly who you are. And Ralph is you, so yeah, he gets it too. When they try to get close to you, they know what they're signing up for. They know what's important to you and they'll support you. And do you know what else I think?"

He expected Walter to reply sarcastically, even angrily, but he just said, "Tell me."

"Before she joined Scorpion, Paige was alone, abandoned, just scraping by and struggling so hard to connect with Ralph. It's because of you that they have a family now. You've helped them in more ways than you may even understand, and to take care of them…to give them the life they deserve…I think that goes a long way toward this penance you think you have to pay."

Walter looked shocked by Toby's speech, as if it was a possibility he had never considered. And for a man who spent all of his time thinking about possibilities, that was a rare moment indeed. He pushed himself off the couch quickly and looked down at Toby.

"Thank you."

Before Toby had time to respond, Walter was making his way out the door and toward the living room, where Paige and Ralph were playing a card game. Ralph was winning, to the surprise of no one. Toby watched from the hallway as Walter placed his hand on Paige's arm and spoke quietly in her ear. The shrink tried not to read their lips, but he couldn't stop himself, and he grinned as he realized that Walter was asking Paige out to dinner.

Paige's smile said everything about her response.


End file.
